Here's a few things to keep in mind that will make the game easier when you log in:

* Look at signs. They tell you where you are. Glancing at them will give you a general idea of what area you are in and what area you are headed to. Examinining them will give you a detailed idea of where you are, where you are headed, and where you may be headed if you keep going.

* Talk to NPC's. Sure, right now many of them don't say much. But some of them will give quests that can last a while,and others will give you useful information about the tone and feel of the city and the world.

* Read the content guides on this board. Eventually they will be compiled into a website, but for now they are just posted news articles. But they have good information. From these topics you can learn about what deities to put in your deity field, or which subraces are supported (there are 2 right now).

* If you really want to hunt, hunt in groups.

* Avlis has its share of magic, but it's not overflowing with it like the single player game NWN. If you want a good magic item, you'll probably have to work for it. That may entail a live quest, or in rare cases an automated one.

According to the basic pantheology of D&D, dead souls go to the outer plane that best suits their alignment. For example, those who were lawful good often go to the Seven Heavens, whereas those who were neutral evil often go to The Gray Wastes of Hades. There are exceptions, but this is the general rule.

This is also what happens on Avlis. When you die, your items go into your corpse, and your spirit is sent to the outer plane that best suited your alignment.

When you hit the respawn button you are transfered to your "death plane", and you will appear to have all your items with you and in tact. However, this is an illusion. Your items are REALLY still back on your corpse. But while you are on your death plane you will be able to use the illusory copies that are with you in order to complete any quests or defend yourself. But once you leave that plane and go back to the world of the living, all your illusory items go POOF, and you will need to loot your original items off your corpse.

The outer planes are all widely different, depending on whether they are good, neutral, or evil aligned. Every plane has some grand theme or characteristic. Good planes are usually very benign, and easy. Neutral planes are usually fairly easy, although they can be very tough at times. Evil planes are usually full of nasty creatures that will kill you over and over and over and over again for theit sick pleasure. Dying sucks, but not overly much.

At this time, all you have to do to get back to the world of the living is step on a trigger that is usually located very near to where you respawned. But eventually, these triggers will go away and you will instead need to complete a small 2 minute quest to get off the plane.

The exception to this is if someone casts Raise Dead (RD) or Resurrection (Res) on your corpse. Casting RD or Res on a death corpse will rip that player out of whatever plane they are in, and whatever quest they are in and put them right at the caster's feet. This is advantageous because usually the player will spawn at the Temple of Mikon if they get back to the world of the living on their own. They may then have to walk ALL THE WAY back to their corpse, and that may be a long way.

If you are too low level to cast RD, no worries. There are NPC healers around who can cast it for you. Currently, there are two at the Temple Grounds, and one in the Temple of Mikon. Periodically, I may throw in wandering clerics who are high enough to cast it, but I have not done that yet. To make an NPC cleric raise a corpse, take the player's corpse token (that little dead body thing that weighs 100 lbs) and "Use" it. When you get the use arrow, click on the ground right at the NPC cleric's feet. Then talk to the cleric. They should immediately raise the person. One of them will charge you 50 gold for it. .

The great thing about NWN is that one can choose to play some fairly "Hard Core" 3rd edition D&D.

While Avlis is not completely hard core, you should expect it to move in that direction. Very soon, dying will be enabled. When a character gets below zero hitpoints, there is a default script in all NWN modules that kills them. This is to spare you the agony of being disabled and having to sit there a -5 hitpoints without being able to do anything.

But that IS the rule as per D&D. We will be putting that in to see how it goes, so don't be suprised.

Eventually there may also be a hard core ruleset penalty for dying. Right now you don't lose any exp for dying, but this may be implemented in the future.

Avlis is not designed for hack and slash, or quick experience from monsters. It's fairly tough to level... We'll tell you that right away.

Being 1st level can be extremely difficult if you try to advance through combat. There are definitely some small monsters around that a 1st level can kill, but they will have a hard time. If there were two or more 1st level characters togethor, they will have an easier time with it.

The main deal here is that advancing to 2nd level through combat is NOT recommended if you are playing alone. You will die alot.

The best way to level to 2nd is to do quests. Many quests involve shuttling items back and forth or collecting some kind of item and bringing it to an NPC. Each time you complete one of these tasks you'll get anywhere from 20 to 40 experience. Luckily, all of these quests can be done over and over, if there is no DM around to give you a live quest. If there IS a DM, they will see you, and they know to concentrate on the newbies more. So just play and you will run into one.

However, even with doing these quests, you will NOT level quickly. Do the math: at 20 exp a pop, 1000 exp will take you 50 quests. That means you'll have to deliver about 50 things to get to level 2, but don't worry, it goes a little faster than you may think, and all the while you have a good chance of running into a DM.

If you absolutely MUST kill things at level know these facts:

* The fire beatle quest is your best bet. It can be found in the Marketplace which is located two areas south of the City Gate District where you come out of the tavern. This quest is the biggest money maker in the game for many levels. You can use it to earn money to equip yourself fairly quickly, and many times you won't even have to kill the beatles. The guards will sometimes do it for you if you're good.

* Hunt in groups

* Exp is turned down really really low, so you will still take a long darn time to level this way.

* Stay out of the sewers. You will die. They are made for at least level 3's if not 4's and 5's minimum.

* If you are a fighter w/ at least 10 hp, you can probably go to the slums and kill gangmembers for some exp, but this will be difficult to do by yourself.

* Once you reach level 2 or 3, you will be able to venture out the city gate and fight some easy undead. There is also an undead crypt area located in a mausoleum that can be found 2N and 1E from the gate. Don't go there alone. Did I mention you should hunt in groups?

Now it is possible for low level characters to advance without any combat at all.

Quests alone can take you to the next level. The best kinds of quests to do are the DM-run quests. They happen just about every single day, but you've got to be on to catch the DM's. This is not usually a problem since there are 5 very active DM's and two or three not so active ones. These quests are different every time and are the basis of what we intend for Avlis' purpose.

The other kind of quests are for newbies that don't happen to find a DM. These quests are scripted ones given out by NPC's. Many of them are what you call "FedEx" quests where you bring something from one NPC to another. They do not have the most substance in the world, but they give decent experience to newbies, and they require you to run around the world to learn your way around. (Avlis is HUUUUUGE. 300+ areas and rising) There are roughly 7000 of these kinds of quests on the mod because they are generated by our quest-o-matic code automatically. This number will double when we implement the opposite of the FedEx quest, the fetching quests.

On top of these there are also some normal scripted quests that actually have a story behind them that you can participate in. There are probably about 10 or so of these quests but they all take a bit longer to do, and in fact they can all be done indefinitely because most of them require an extended mission that can keep giving you returns, example... the Fire Beatle quest that can be found in the Marketplace. In this quest you can opt to become a supplier to the NPC which will earn you a steady flow of cash should you choose. This is just one example. But there are others.

How do you find the quests?

For the FedEx quests, the general rule of thumb is that if the NPC has a name other than "A commoner", he's probably got something to say. Talk to him. This holds true for most of the other quests as well. A couple of quests have hooks without names, but they always originate with unusual NPC's. So if you see a single NPC that you didn't see anywhere else, talk to him.

By this method, a newbie should have plenty to do during those times when they cannot find a DM.